Spain will deploy hundreds of troops to Valencia on Friday to help with the response to the deadliest floods to hit the country for decades.

About 500 soldiers were expected to arrive in the Valencia region, where a makeshift morgue has been set up to identify the dead, some of whom are still being pulled from the wreckage caused by this week’s flash flooding.

There are about 1,200 soldiers from the military’s emergency unit already operating in the region, where a deluge of water engulfed cars, closed roads, cancelled trains and killed more than 150 people.

Authorities said the death toll had reached 158 on Thursday, meaning it could become Europe’s worst storm-related disaster in more than five decades.